Flying over Baghdad with Sylvia Plath: Experiences Through Poetry with Poets and Poems in Iraq and Afghanistan

Poetry as hero not heroic poetry. Just masterful verse which performs extraordinary work in extraordinary circumstances. No one has likely ever uttered the words Read Jennifer Kronovets collection; it will save your life! That is until today.Because it has for me. All the poets introduced here have literally plucked me from flames. I had to make sense of Afghanistan Iraq The Surge our Senates approval of The Surge my familys struggles in my absence and the moral decrepitude of the undertakings of conflict these ones and all the ones before.Years ago poet Donald Finkel introduced me to the writings of Albert Goldbarth. His piece Knees/Dura-Europos made me grasp the overwhelming continuity of war its timelessness and how Goldbarth confronted it with lines like This is whats happening now and This is whats going to happen. So the questions is What is poetry doing about it? Because we know war happened happens and will happen again.Well if you ask the poets represented in this book they can truly say We are denying it an enclave; We have named it what it is; We have plowed its fields with salt; We have refused to clothe or feed it. There is no need to charge barricades. These poets have denied war the ability to traverse their land in the time-honored guerilla fashion of refusing an enemy sustenance support a base from which to operate and raze surrounding country. While I served in President Bushs wars their work became a series of safe houses places I could find sympathy and support.So now having departed these wars reviewing my experiences I pin these tiny medals on the poets that did a heros work pulled me from the fire fed me bread and wine in the dark warm corners of their books.